That US travel advisory

It is unclear why the Secretary to the State Government of Edo, Prof. Julius Ihonvbere, needed to take on the United States over a travel advisory issued by that country’s Bureau of Consular Affairs of the State Department restricting the travels of American citizens in Nigeria. The advisory did not warn Nigerians off Edo State, nor advised other people but Americans to watch their travels in Nigeria. The advisory did not also attempt to rate the safety index of Edo, especially in comparisons with other states. All it did was to list 10 states the US felt Americans would be unsafe in, and to then add that its officials should avoid the entire 19 northern states except it became absolutely essential. The advisory predicated the travel ban on the incidence of robberies, armed gangs activities and kidnappings in those Nigerian states.

To disprove the advisory, however, Ihonvbere could not resist the impulse of embarking on giddy logic. He argues thus: “It beats the imagination of discerning minds that while some states which record violent crimes on a daily basis in the country are excluded from the list, Edo State which has been commended by all, including the World Bank which, through its Country Director, Marie Francoise Marie-Nelly said: “Edo State’s social indicators are above the national average” and which had earlier been confirmed by her predecessor, Mr. Onno Ruhl, who said, “Edo State is one of the states in Nigeria where the willingness to change is the fastest in Nigeria”, is included in the offensive U.S list.” The US travel advisory said nothing about Edo’s economic potentials or adaptability, so why is Ihonvbere depending upon the statements of World Bank officials?

Furthermore, the travel advisory, as Ihonvbere himself acknowledges in his rejoinder, is essentially about travels of US citizens in Nigeria during this holiday season. It is neither a permanent travel ban nor a commentary on Edo’s economy, nor yet about whether Edo is the safest in the South-South or anywhere else. Rather than make a cynical commentary on safe and unsafe American cities in the light of the shooting incidents in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York, Ihonvbere should have more appropriately and less combatively assured Americans of their safety in Edo State and indicate the steps the state was taking, in spite of the recent robberies in the Edo town of Auchi, to ensure the safety of citizens and foreigners alike. Edo State may in fact be the safest in the South-South, and may even be much safer than many northern states not mentioned in the US travel advisory, but it is hard to see how an impulsive or tongue-in-cheek rebuttal would be of any help.

In spite of whatever merits are contained in Ihonvbere’s rejoinder, they will sadly be attenuated by the fact that the world has learnt to expect from Nigeria bad-tempered attacks against every assessment portraying the country in unflattering colours. Nigerian officials habitually react peevishly and sometimes sanctimoniously to Amnesty International (AI) reports and other international agency reports worrying about our laggard position in human development indices. Officials here also condemn any report predicting that certain serious political and social fault lines could predispose the country to disintegration if urgent measures were not taken to tackle them. In sum, Nigerian officials rarely see this negative portrayal of the country as a reason to shape up. They see it as a reason to be surly and combative.

Considering how Edo has reacted, it is not impossible a few other states could also paint their states in good light and condemn the US travel advisory as mischievous and mendacious. After all, in May, Gen Muhammad Shuwa (retd) denounced Gen T.Y. Danjuma (retd) for describing Borno State a failed state, only to be felled by assassins barely six months later in the same state he had tried to portray as not a failed state. The problem is not so much the challenges Nigeria is facing – these are by no means unusual or new – but the manner officials either live in denial or denounce those who call their attention to those challenges. Whether it is the safest or not in the South-South, Edo doubtless faces security challenges, like most other states. And while the state is not alone in facing these challenges, its officials, like those of Nigeria, must learn how to properly respond to the concerns raised by others.